Our January 25 showing of an unsubtitled print of this rare film by Abel Gance (director of Napoleon, Le Roue, J'Accuse, and The Great Love Of Beethoven), revealed Paradis Perdu to be an absolutely delightful film, and from the point of view of mise-en-scene, a near-masterpiece. Now we are able to show it for the first time with subtitles, in the hopes that it will begin to find the audience it deserves. At a New York Film Festival showing, Paradis Perdu was described by Richard Roud as:

“A charming comedy, and Gance's most entertaining film... the screen debut of Micheline Presle who co-stars with Fernand Gravey. The story is quite mad: a young artist falls in love with a dress-maker's assistant; the war comes, they marry, and she dies in childbirth. Years later, his daughter (also played by Mlle. Presle) forces him to sacrifice his own plans to marry a girl no older than herself. To offset the extravagance of the plot, the treatment is delicate, subtle, warm, and touching.”